


my feet won't touch the ground

by plinys



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-02-03
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:39:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5693188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the Resistance base moving away from D'Qar and his recovery not yet complete, Finn is left feeling like a bit of a lost end. That is until Poe arrives with a solution, taking Finn with him as he returns home to Yavin 4, for the first time in a long while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Poe

**Author's Note:**

> For the wonderful Beej! This was supposed to be just a small fic swap, but it got out of control, and now is a ten chapter long fic. It's almost all finished (two scenes need to be completed), but I figured I would start off by posting the first chapter now. I hope you enjoy!

Poe had known that it would only be a matter of time before the Resistance Base moved again.

D’Qar was nice. He was going to miss the hanger that the flight crew spent most their time in, the cramped room that he’d called his own the past year, and the fog that would roll in some mornings almost reminding him of Yavin 4. But Poe understood. The First Order may have just taken a serious hit, but they knew where the base was and staying there any longer than necessary was not an option.

Still, Poe had managed to hang back a bit. Insisting that he would be on one of the last transports out to their new base, helping to run patrols and protect the people who remained.

Most everyone went along with it, but he could clearly recall the knowing look the General had shot his way before she told him to, “Give Finn our best wishes.”

 Sometimes Poe would swear that she could read minds.

The problem, that the General had so quickly figured out, was that _Finn_ was still at the base on D’Qar.

At first it had been because of his injuries, the moving had already begun to take place while he was lying asleep in the medbay. Even when he woke up it had been a long process just to get him to stand on his own again, and now physical therapy was happening with the assistance of the one remaining medic and a handful of meddroids.

Not the ideal situation.

“They want me to take a _vacation_ ,” Finn tells him. The word sounding so forign on Finn’s lips. As though he didn’t understand the concept of it. “I’m sending holos back and forth with the General, telling them whatever I can about the First Order, but it’s not…” He trails off, looking around the empty commissary. “I want to be out there with everyone else fighting, not relaxing. I mean, where would I even go?”

Poe means to commiserate with him. To insist that there will be plenty to be done once he’s back to one hundred percent, but none of those words come to his lips when he opens his mouth. Instead his traitorous heart speaks for him. “Yavin 4.”

For a second Finn just seems to stare at him before asking, “I’m sorry, what?”

“Yavin 4,” Poe repeats more determined this time. “The General’s been bugging me to take some time for myself.” Well actually she’d told him to _take a break_ once in a while, but this counted right?

“So you want to take a vacation with me on Yavin 4,” Finn asks, sort of hesitantly, but for the first moment he doesn’t seem completely confused or displeased by the notion of taking a vacation.

It’s all Poe needs to convince himself this is the right decision.

“I grew up there. I’ve still got the family ranch, it’s probably a bit dusty, I haven’t been back since I left the navy but it’s home. If you’re interested that is. I mean, feel free to tell me no. You can be like _Poe this is the worst thing I’ve ever-_ “

“I’ll go with you.”

“You sure?”

Finn shrugs, but there’s a hint of a grin of his face, and if Poe wasn’t already stupidly smitten about Finn, that smile would have surely made him so. “It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do right?”

\---

There are only two downsides this plan.

The first being that due to the fact that his X-Wing’s cockpit only fits one person, they’re traveling by transport to Yavin 4. While Jess flies his _baby_ to the new base to await his eventual return to active service. He gives her a good talking down before she takes his X-Wing, but the other pilot had just rolled her eyes at him. Before making a lewd suggestion about how he was planning to spend his vacation.

The second downside was that in all likelihood he wouldn’t get to act out Jessika’s lewd suggestion, because last time Poe had checked Finn was not interested in him. He hadn’t come out and said it, and Poe wasn’t about to ask, but he was certain that Finn was interested in Rey – or at least just not interested in men at all – otherwise surely he would’ve recognized Poe’s not so subtle attempts at flirting by now.

Not that Poe was going to hold it against him.

Friends were good.

Friends were fine.

Poe could do friends.

Probably.

“Hey Poe,” Finn’s voice sharp and sure pulls Poe out of his thoughts. Poe turns to look at him. Finn is settled against the wall of the transport, legs sprawled out in front of him, his head titled back slightly to look up at the metal wall above them.

“What’s up?”

“Distract me.”

Concern flash through Poe in an instant. “Are you okay? Is it your back or-“

“That’s not distracting me,” Finn points out. Lowering his head to level Poe a steady gaze. “I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

Finn doesn’t answer him for a moment. When he does his voice is small. “The last time I was on something like this, we were heading for Jakku, and…” Finn trails off after that, but Poe can put two and two together easily enough.

“Right, distraction.”

Finn’s ”Please,” is so desperate, that it physically hurts Poe.

His brain quickly scrambles for some story, any story, that can be used to distract Finn. Something about Yavin 4 seems most fitting, and before Poe can think about whether the story is appropriate or not he’s speaking up, “Back when I was in the Republic Navy, we used to get holiday weekends for breaks, right? Well, they had to be Galactic holidays or one specific to your home planet, to get the excuse for time off. And see Yavin 4’s a planet full of colonists, so I didn’t have any home planet holidays to get breaks for, at least not until I convinced the Naval Board that the anniversary of the Battle of Yavin was considered a _planetary_ holiday.”

“You lied?”

“Yeah, and I would’ve gotten away with it too, had one of Captains not wanted to come with me for the celebrations.”

Finn looks slightly more relaxed, not significantly, but his posture is less stiff, and his eyes are focused on Poe with rapt attention that Poe’s not certain he deserves.

“Okay,” Finn says, voice still a bit tight, “What happened next?”

\---

It was good to be home.

 _Dameron Ranch_ had alwaysseemed like an oasis in the jungles of Yavin, far enough off from the spaceport that it wasn’t frequented by visitors. Leaving it undisturbed for the most part as the rest of the world had moved on.

He had neighbors to watch the place while he was off planet, keep an eye on it just in case raiders came by or a storm knocked one of the trees surrounding the ranch over.

For the most part it looks the same as Poe had remembered from the last time he was here, over a year prior. The white fence that he had helped his father paint was flaking off to show the wood underneath. The Force sensitive _tree_ that his mother had planted seemed to have sprouted even more leaves, glowing ever so slightly in the early morning light. But other than that the place looks unchanged. The house is still intact. The ship hanger outback still locked up and undisturbed.

Finn lets out a low whistle beside him. “This is it then?”

Poe nods his head, leading the way towards the front door. “Home, or what’s left of it. Apologies in advance for the mess, I can’t remember what state I left this place in and well… It’s been a while.”

The war keeps everyone busy, but even if there wasn’t a war going home, he probably wouldn’t have spent too much time on Yavin 4. Back before, when he’d been just another member of the Republic’s Navy, his father used to tell him to go home, to take a break from time to time. But there had been so much going on, so much of the galaxy to see, that he just hadn’t had the chance.

The last time he spent more than a few days here had been for the funeral.

His hand presses up against the reader beside the door way, and after a few moments the outdated computing kicks into gear, sliding open the doors to his childhood home.

“And here we are.”

There’s a thin layer of dust over everything, and Poe makes a mental note that once he gets Finn settled to clean up the place. But when he looks over at Finn to apologize for the mess, there’s a wide eyed look in the other man’s eyes. A look that Poe cannot explain, cannot even begin to understand.

“What are you thinking,” he asks, before he can think to stop himself.

Finn doesn’t appear to be bothered by the rude question. “I’m trying to imagine a young Poe Dameron.”

Poe grimaces. “I wasn’t much to look at as a kid, I’ll tell you that much. Never quite hit that growth spurt, had this awful haircut for a while.”

When Finn laughs it’s a good natured one. “I can almost see it now.”

“Don’t strain yourself,” Poe teases in return. “I’m sure we’ve got some pictures around here. My dad loved to document everything, he used to say that it was important to remember where we came from and those who came before us.”

“He sounds like a smart man.”

“He was,” Poe says. “He would’ve liked you, would’ve been happy I came home. I should’ve come home more often.”

For a second he images it. If his parents had lived to see him now, what they would’ve thought of Finn. His dad would’ve called him a _buckethead_ in the most good natured of tones, demanded to know Finn’s life story the good and the bad. While his mother would’ve teased Poe endlessly for bringing such a handsome young man home.

The thought makes his chest tight. It doesn’t help that he’s standing here, in the entry way of a home with far too many memories.

Perhaps it would’ve been easier if he had taken Finn somewhere else for his rest and relaxation, somewhere with less ghosts.

“Poe?”

Finn is waiting for a response to something, something he said that Poe had been too caught up in his head to catch. And he mentally chides himself for that.

Thankfully BB-8 senses the situation quicker than Poe does, letting out a quick burst of binary that saves Poe from having to ask Finn to repeat himself. Before emitting a series of beeps to ask if Poe is okay.

“Let me show you to the guest room,” Poe says, “It should be mostly livable, might have to switch out the sheets, and I have a hunch the water’s not going to be running in the ‘fresher, but I can fix that.”

He reaches out to lace his arm through Finn’s in a silent offer of support. Support that Finn takes easily, letting Poe take some of his weight. His heart beats too fast in his chest, foolishly giddy over their proximity. Silently Poe wills his heart to slow down, so that Finn does not sense what he’s doing to him.

The traitorous heart predictably doesn’t listen.

Though he does manage to get them to the guest room without Finn making a mention of it, so Poe will count that one as a small victory.

“I’ll leave you to get settled then, my room is just down the hall, ‘fresher on the left. If you need anything just have BB-8 come get me or-“

“You know I’m supposed to be resting, but I’m not helpless.”

“I know,” Poe insists. Before giving Finn a teasing grin. “I just don’t want you to get lost.”

 

 


	2. Finn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, each chapter means a switching of pov. Forgot to mention that before.

 

 

Finn hadn’t realized he was tired until he had laid down on the bed, but the second he had, the stress of the journey had suddenly caught up with him. And the gift of a bed plusher than the ones he had been staying at in the medbay on D’Qar had led to Finn getting his first hint of decent rest in a long time.

By the time he wakes up again, the day was well passed. The sun which had risen while they had been on the speeder heading to the ranch is now on the other side of the planet. Likely hours from settling into night time.

His back hurts as he get up, the damaged muscles pulling so that Finn cannot not help but let out a gasp of pain. He fumbles in the bag he had abandoned before to grab the bottle of pain medication the meddroids had given him, but there was no water to chase it down with so reluctantly and with a bit of difficulty he rises from the bed.

Finn hadn’t had much time to explore the house before his accidental nap, so now as he steps out of the guest room, the whole place seems a bit unfamiliar.

Finn takes a deep breath, trying to center himself, and listening for the soft sound of feet moving about somewhere in the house. If he found Poe he would be fine.

After all this was Poe’s home. 

Home.

That was what Poe had called this place.

A concept in itself which was unfamiliar to Finn. He understood the basics, a place to sleep or a place to call ones’ own. Though the only things Finn could really call his own were a poorly patched up jacket and a blaster (both of which had been given to him).

So the weight of the word _home_ hadn’t really hit him. At least, not until he’d seen the way Poe’s eyes had lit up the second Yavin 4 showed up on the viewport. Until they’d arrived at the spaceport and he watched the ease at which Poe moved through the crowd, brushing hands with people in a casual friendly greeting, leading the way with sure feet. Until they’d settled astride a borrowed speeder, heading for the famous _Dameron Ranch_. Until he’d been shown to this very room, in a house that was unfamiliar to him, yet seemed to bring back so many memories for Poe that just stepping in the door made his eyes nearly water.

The worst thing was that Finn had wanted to apologize. For what he wasn’t exactly sure.

At the same time, he wanted to know all of Poe’s secrets, to know what each knickknack sitting on the desk of the guest room meant, there were stories here that Finn couldn’t even begin to imagine.

This must have been what it was like to have a home.

To have a place where one belonged even when the world went to ruin.

What Finn wouldn’t give to have a place like that.

“The sleepy head has arisen,” Poe says, when Finn turns the corner into the kitchen and finds the very person he had been looking for.

Poe’s cooking something, something that smells ten times better than the replicated food that had in the commons at the Resistance base.

But that’s not the most shocking thing, no it’s Poe himself. Out of his flight suit and dressed down in a pair of faded pants rolled up his calves so that his bare feet stand out against the floor and a shirt so worn that the fabric seems almost transparent as it hangs over his form. Surely Poe must know what he looks like, must know what he does to Finn.

It’s not fair.

“Space is exhausting,” Finn says.

It’s a weak excuse, and Poe gives him one of those smirks. The one that makes Finn’s chest tight, as he says, “I know the feeling. Though you missed all the exciting stuff by napping.”

“That right?”

“Water’s up and running now, had a bit of a struggle getting the sonic online. Looks like I’ll need to run to the port and pick up parts for that, so just stick to water for now if you’re going to shower,” Poe explains. “Also looks like a fuel line sprung a small leak, but I fixed it, mostly. It’s nothing serious in any case.”

“Sounds serious.”

“We’ll be fine,” Poe reassures him. “At least until I can get some new parts.”

“You’re going back to the port tomorrow then?”

Poe shrugs his shoulders a bit. “Maybe? I’ve got a few things to pick up. Why, you want to come?”

Finn’s shrug is an echo of Poe’s. “Maybe.”

They fall into an easy silence after that. Poe cooking something – thought Finn has no idea where he could have gotten food to cook with, since this place looked like it hadn’t been lived in by another lifeform in a while. He takes a seat, grimacing at the twinge of pain in his back again.

The noise does not go unmissed, Poe’s eyes flashing his way in concern.

“Your back?”

Finn nods his head jerkily, and quick as can be there’s a cup of water on the table beside him. Poe offering to go back to his room and grab his medicine follows immediately after.

 “I’ve got some here, I just…” Finn trails off.

He’d just gotten distracted. Poe had a way of doing that to him, distracting him from everything else in the world. Slowing the universe down until it was only the two of them, and nothing else came even close to mattering.

When he looks up into Poe’s eyes there is concern there, “Promise me to take care of yourself.”

“I promise,” Finn says quickly.

He would promise Poe anything, if only to get that relieved smile in return once more.

\---

The problem with having slept through the daylight hours that now as the sun was setting Finn was wide awake.

He’d waved Poe off after dinner when the other man had been no so subtly trying to stifle his yawns. Insisting that he was fine with simply BB-8 for company, and settling himself outside under the cover of the large tree that took up most of Poe’s front yard.

There was something about the tree – the way it glowed ever so slightly and the comforting energy that seemed to radiate off of it – he made a mental note to ask Poe about that in the morning. Though for the time being he simply pressed his back up against its trunk, gazing out at the sky.

Sunsets were beautiful, in a way Finn could not explain.

Before he left the First Order there had never been a chance to sit out like this and simply watch the sky get dark, but when he’d been stuck on D’Qar for his recovery, he’d sometimes go out onto the landing strips, and watch as they sky faded in color. The hues of reds and oranges that came before the purples leading into the darkness of night.

And all he was left with was the stars.

The stars looked different on Yavin 4 than they had on D’Qar.

BB-8 beeps beside him, a string of binary that Finn doesn’t even know where to begin to translate. Though he can sense to concerned tone, even if the notion of a _droid_ sounding concerned seemed so absurd.

“Yeah, I got it, going back inside. No need to mother hen me.”

He must be close enough to what BB-8 said, because this time when the droid beeps it sounds almost pleased, before helping to push Finn up off of the ground.

“Poe tell you to look after me.”

That gets him two shallow beeps in reply, the only piece of binary Finn has learned in his time since escaping the First Order.

Just one word – _Yes_.

 

 


	3. Poe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, real life got a little messy for a moment there, but it's back in order now so expect updates about every other day going forward.

Poe wakes up when the sun rises.

Old habits, die hard.

He’d gotten most of the necessary repairs on the house done the day before, keeping himself so busy that he didn’t dwell on the heavy weight of the door that used to lead to his parents' room, or the hanger out back with the A-Wing that he had learned to fly on.

But now, in the early morning, with Finn still fast asleep taking the rest that had been mandated for his recovery, Poe had no excuse for not going out to the hanger.

The hanger is locked with a more crude lock, one that requires a key to open rather than just the touchpad. There was something sentimental about using the antiquated lock and key, this mother had trusted them for security, even though every time she misplaced the key she would just use a blaster to blow the lock and set about making a new one when she was inside.

Poe pushes open the doors to the hanger, the dust from the inside creating shadows in the sun, as he pushes the doors wide enough that he could bring the A-Wing out had it been in shape to fly.

Though, much like the rest of the ranch, this too was in need of repairs.

The faint smell of oil hung in the air, and Poe could close his eyes and get lost in the feeling of it.

Taking him back to his childhood in an instant, to the years he had spent in this very hanger. The younger ones he’d spent at his mother’s side learning everything she could teach him about mechanics, before she even considered letting him in the seat of her A-Wing.

Then in the years following her death, when he had pushed himself to finish all of the projects she had left incomplete when her sickness took over. The speeder he’d long since sold, a constant string of repairs to the A-Wing, and the blueprints for an astromech droid of her own creation.

But when he opens his eyes, he’s back in the present. A dusty hanger and an outdated fighter.

He had work to do.

\---

Poe had left BB-8 in charge of looking after Finn, which was why the second he heard the frantic beeping of his droid, he knew to expect the sound of feet following it.

By the time Poe rolls himself out from under the A-Wing, Finn is standing there.

He doesn’t immediately pushed himself up off of the ground, instead he stares up at Finn from this absurd angle. Relishing momentarily in the grin he gets in return from the man standing above him.

“You’ve got grease on your nose,” is the first thing Finn says to him.

Instinctively Poe reaches up before remembering that his hands are just as bad, no doubt smearing even more of it across his face, if the laugh Finn lets out a second later is any sort of indicator.

“Here let me help you,” Finn says, crouching down on his knees, leaning into Poe’s space to rub the grease off of Poe’s nose with his sleeve. Poe can’t seem to remember how to breathe until Finn finishes, rocking back to sit on the ground beside Poe. “All better.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem,” Finn says with a little shrug. Before his eyes seem to move about the hanger. “Why am I not surprised you have a fighter in here.”

“It was my mom’s,” Poe says, feeling the irrational need to justify himself. “Last time I was here I nearly got her running again, figured maybe this time I’d be able to.”

BB-8 gives him an encouraging beep, bumping against his side once, before rolling underneath to A-Wing. As though the droid doesn’t trust his judgement. 

“Your mom was a pilot?”

“Flew in the rebellion with Luke Skywalker years ago, she used to tell me all these stories about the war, about what it was like to fight for something you believed in,” Poe says, “Though she never wanted me to follow in her footsteps.”

That seems to confuse Finn. “Why not?”

“She wanted the war to be over, both of my parents did. If they could see the galaxy now, they’d be upset. Barely thirty years down the road and we’ve already lost the peace that they fought for.”

He doesn’t mean for the bitterness to creep into his voice, but he remembers the conversations too well. The way his parents insisted that they’d done their part, that the galaxy should be at peace now, even when it wasn’t. It had been a common argument in his childhood, happening behind hushed doors when they had thought he was asleep.

When Finn speaks, he sounds almost guilty. “They would’ve hated me then.”

“No,” he insists, reaching across the space between them, to grab Finn’s hand. He wants to lace their fingers together, to bring that hand up to his lips and press a comforting kiss to Finn’s knuckles. But he holds back, instead just offering a comforting squeeze instead. “They would’ve loved you.” The _like I do_ remains unspoken.

Finn doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t pull his hand away either and Poe takes that as a good sign.

He takes the lull in the conversation to change the topic to something less painful. “Once I get this up and running again, I’ll teach you how to fly? The cockpits really only suitable for one person, but we could manage something. That is, if you want to learn?”

Finn seems surprised by the offer. “You’d teach me?”

“Of course,” Poe insists. “An A-Wing is the easiest fighter to learn on, very basic controls, but can be applied to a Y-Wing or X-Wing if you ever get stuck in the cockpit.”

“Did you learn to fly on this one?”

Poe nods.

“Crashed her a few times before I got it all figured out.”

“You? Crashing? Now that’s something I can’t imagine.”

\---

By time they make it to the spaceport and get all the parts Poe needs to fix up the A-Wing and the house, the day is nearly half gone. Time seems to pass faster on Yavin 4, especially at the spaceport, everyone around them rushing to place to place. Colonists were never the type to sit still, there was always something to be done as on Yavin 4, nobody was going to wait around for someone else to do it.

There was something to be said about building a society from basically nothing.

Though while Poe was used to the speed of the spaceport, Finn lagged just a bit behind him.

“You know, I’ve never actually been to one of these before,” Finn says, when they stop to grab a bit to eat at a cantina.

“I thought Rey said you guys stopped at Maz’s?”

“No, I mean, we did, I’ve been to a cantina before. Well, that one time,” Finn corrects, “But I mean just spaceports in general. Back _before_ I didn’t have much of a chance to take any time off, to explore a spaceport. If we showed up it was for business, and things never ended any way that was good.”

Poe grimaces. “Well, it’s different now. We can enjoy ourselves, have a little something to drink, have some fun.” At that his eyes flicked over to their waitress, an attractive enough Kiffar that had been not so subtly flirting with them when she’d taken their drink order earlier. “If you wanted to ditch me to have some fun I’d understand.”

Finn follows his gaze, but he seemed to freeze, when he spotted their waitress.

“I’m good thanks,” Finn replies, awkwardly looking away from her, to instead stare down at the table between them. “Though if you wanted to…”

“She’s not my type,” Poe says, with a little laugh.

“What is your type then?”

“Male.”

Finn is silent for a few moments after that. Moments that seem like an eternity to Poe and his rapidly beating heart before, lasting until Finn quietly says, “Oh.”

“Good _oh_ or bad _oh_?”

“Good,” Finn says, his voice raising at the end like a question.

But Poe will take it.

“Good,” he echoes. “Now, let me see what I can do about getting us another round of drinks.”

Poe pushes out of his seat as fast as possible, not casting a second glance at Finn, but instead hurrying up to the bar to order something to drink, _something strong_.

The bartender doesn’t seem surprised, though his eyes crinkle a bit in a hint of amusement, before he turns away to get Poe’s order.

It hits him as the drink is being poured that he knows the bartender, this is the same man that had keep the drinks coming for him after his father’s funeral, who had let Poe crash upstairs when he’d been too drunk to manage to get his speeder home safely.

“Malik,” Poe says when the right name comes to him, “Can you put one of those paper umbrellas in the drink.”

That earns him another amused look, but the bartender drops two paper umbrellas into the blue drinks, before pushing them across the counter to Poe.

“You and your boy let me know if you need anything else,” Malik says, when Poe’s taken the drinks.

He doesn’t think until he’s back on his way to Finn, that he ought to have corrected the bartender.

 

 


	4. Finn

“So what are these things called again?”

Finn warily eyes the _giant bugs_ moving across the field in front of them, directed on their path by BB-8 letting out a series of shrill beeps that sound like nonsense to Finn, but have Poe grinning like a fool. Clearly there is some sort of inside joke that Finn is not in on.

“Piranha Beetles,” Poe corrects, when Finn asks. “We used to have a heard here, they’re delicious if you know how to shuck them.”

His face scrunches up in distaste. “Please tell me you didn’t feed me _bugs_ for breakfast.”

“I didn’t feed you bugs for breakfast, though I was thinking for lunch-“

“No,” Finn says quickly. “I’m not eating one of those.”

Poe’s laugh is startling, but so warm that Finn can’t help but join in even if he doesn’t entirely understand what they’re laughing about.

“You don’t really eat them, right,” Finn asks when their laughter has died down.

Poe’s laugh continues, as he reaches across to sling an arm around Finn’s shoulders and pull him close. It’s a casual movement, nothing more, but Finn finds his mind lingering on the contact. Distracting him from Poe’s teasing reassurances that nobody actually eats the bugs.

He barely remembers to speak when a silence slips between them, distracted from all other thoughts by Poe’s presence. Eventually he manages to say, “That’s a relief,” cringing at how his voice breaks ever so slightly on the last word.

Finn still wasn’t sure what all this was. The way his body seemed to shut down the second Poe was around. He was attracted to Poe that much was clear, but Finn had been attracted to other people before and it had never been quiet like this.

 “Actually once I did,” Poe admits. “Most disgusting thing I’ve ever eaten. But usually they’re used for manual labor. I mean I could lug a broken speeder across a yard if I really had to, but strap one of these things up to it. As long as you mind the teeth you’ve got the perfect carrier.”

“The teeth.”

“They’re not called _piranha_ beetles for nothing.”

Thankfully before Finn came make more of a fool of himself, BB-8 makes some sort of whistling noise that has Poe out of his relaxed position in an instant.

“I’ll be right back,” he tells Finn quickly, before hurrying down into the field.

Finn watches with silent amusement for a few moments at the conversation between Poe and his droid, a conversation that Finn can only understand half of. But whatever the debate is, Poe seems to win, for when he returns to sit under the tree with Finn, BB-8 comes rolling around with him. Letting off a series of angry beeps.

“Do I even want to know?”

The smile he gets in return is slightly crooked and just a bit cocky and Finn _knows_ that smile. It’s the same one Poe had given him before insisting that one of the runs he’d went on while Finn was bedridden had ended up with a minor setback. A minor setback, which Finn later found out from a meddroid, was Poe breaking a rib after a crash landing.

It’s a smile that means whatever Poe’s about to say isn’t going to be the whole truth.

“A certain someone wasn’t following the rules and was going to get themselves smashed.”

This time the beep in reply sounds down right indignant.

 “I wish I knew what you were saying little buddy,” Finn says, as the droid rolls over to his side of the shade, doing so clearly to spite Poe. “I mean, I can get yes or no most of the time, but otherwise it just sounds like random noises.

Poe worries his lip for a moment. A look that is unfairly attractive.

“All languages sound like random noises until you learn to speak them.”

Finn supposed that was true. “Yeah, but we can’t all be protocol droids.”

“You’re saying that I am?”

“I mean you do look a little gold, almost like the General’s droid.”

Poe pokes at Finn’s shoulder, “They don’t call me the golden boy of the resistance for nothing you know.”

Finn reaches up to catch the hand on this shoulder, their fingers lingering against each other for a brief moment, before Finn pushes playfully pushes his hand aside. There’s a lingering warmth there against his fingertips.

“You know, if you wanted to learn binary I could probably teach you. There’s not much else to do around here.”

Poe did have a point there. Yavin 4 was slow, peaceful in a way that clearly followed the guidelines of _vacation_ that the meddroids had insisted he needed. But he did feel a sense of nervous energy within him, the need to be doing something, and at least learning binary would be a productive use of their time.

“You’d do that, for me?”

“Well, we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Friends.

Friends was nice.

But oh – Finn wanted to be so much more than friends.

“That we are.”

\---

They spend much of the day with Finn pointing out random objects, BB-8 letting out a series of beeps, and Poe translating for them. He’s not sure what exactly _Poe_ is getting out of this, and if the situations were reversed Finn could only imagine that he would be bored out of his mind. But Poe seems happy to help, his face lighting up every time Finn correctly identifies something BB-8 says.

It’s a slow process, one that Finn is impressed to hear that Poe learned how to do at age six.

He tried to remember what he had been doing at that age, but it wasn’t a pleasant thought. Instead of growing up in a ranch house on a remote moon learning how to understand binary, he had a blaster thrust into his hands.

“There’s so much I don’t know about you,” Finn blurts out without thinking about it.

When Poe finishes recounting the tale of how he learned how to speak binary. They’re still laying under the weird glowing tree in front of Poe’s house. Or at least – Finn is laying on the ground. Poe had climbed up into the tree at some point. Moving among the branches with the casual ease of someone who had done this hundreds of times before.

“I’m an open book,” Poe insists. “All you have to do is ask.”

“That’s just the problem. I don’t even know what to ask. Where do I even begin with you?”

BB-8 says something, something Finn can’t understand, but whatever it is startles Poe enough that he slips from his resting place up in the tree, fumbling a bit as he manages to secure a new spot in a move that is neither graceful nor subtle.

“What did he say,” Finn asks. “I caught my name, but other than that-“

“Nothing that needs to be repeated,” Poe says quickly.

The sun might be setting, but Finn swears for a second he can see a brief hint of color on the other man’s cheeks. Before Poe is hoping down out of the tree, giving up on his perch, and landing on the ground.

He shuffles over towards BB-8, “I think he’s got some faulty programming, I’m going to take him in to get that looked at.”

Finn may not fully understand binary, but he catches _do not_ clearly enough and the indignant tone from the droid.

“Do you need my help?”

“No, no,” Poe says far too quickly, steering the droid back off into the house. “I’ve got this, you just enjoy yourself.”

 


	5. Poe

BB-8 is going to be the death of him. It’s official.

“I regret ever building you,” Poe hisses under his breath at the droid the minute Finn steps out of the room.

_/BB-8 is merely trying to help Master-Poe/_

Help.

Okay, sure help would be nice, but making lewd suggestions while he was trying to teach Finn to understand binary was not helping at all. At least they were still at the learning point which means that there was no chance of BB-8 sneaking over to Finn and telling him exactly how Poe feels before Poe gets up the nerve to do it himself.

The thing is, he’s nearly about to.

It’s been a week of _vacation_ at the ranch, and Poe thinks if there was ever a moment it should be sooner rather than later. Except, if Finn turned down his advances – well, Poe would just have to insist that it was fine for Finn to stay here regardless while he recovered, and Poe could go off back to working for the resistance in the meantime. The ranch was in well enough order that Finn could manage to stay on his own, if he never wanted to see Poe again.

Though he desperately hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

_/Master-Poe should tell Friend-Finn how he feels/_

“I’m trying,” Poe insists, his voice a near whine.

_/Master-Poe should use words. Master-Poe is not trying very hard./_

Poe groans, running a hand through his hair. Disheveling the curls that Poe had worked so hard to tame before coming downstairs this morning. He wanted to look his best for Finn, even if the other man seemed to be unable to tell the subtle differences in the way Poe wore his hair each day.

“It’s harder than it looks, BB-8.”

_/Open mouth and speak. This is not hard. Master-Poe has done this before./_

He lets out another groan.

Explaining the subtitles of romance to BB-8 is something Poe has long since learned to be pointless.

“That’s the thing BB-8, Finn’s not like other people. He’s special,” Poe says, “And I want to say something to him I really do, but the thought of messing this up and losing him… It’s not a risk I’m willing to take.”

\---

“How are you feeling, Finn?”

“You know, you ask me that question almost every day,” Finn says.

He does have a point there.

“Fine, new question, do you think you’d be up for taking a bit of a trip tomorrow?”

“A trip?”

“You ever wanted to see an old Rebel base?”

He’s not sure when the idea had come into his head, probably earlier when he was working on the A-Wing waiting for Finn to join the land of the living, but once it had got there he couldn’t get rid of it. Back when he was younger he used to sneak off to the old base all the time. It had become sort of tradition that whenever he had company, especially other kids of former rebellion members, he would lead them through the winding jungles of Yavin 4 to the old base.

The buildings that the rebellion had used while on Yavin 4 were mostly abandoned. Looted for all of their valuables by scavengers long after they were left when the rebellion had moved to Hoth – but the bare bones were still there. The old dorm style bunks, the bare bones of a control room, the ceremonial hall where a young General Organa had presented medals of valor to her brother and future husband.

“There’s one of those around here?”

Poe nods his head. “It’s the whole reason Yavin 4 got colonized, after the war those who’d worked on the base here got sentimental and came back. My parents were among them, they used to tell me these stories of everything that happened in those old rooms. It’s mostly ruins now, but… I thought we could stretch out legs a bit.”

Finn’s face lights up at the prospect of that. “Is it far from here?”

“We can take the speeder if your back’s hurting, or there’s this little path through the jungle a bit of a shortcut. Found it when I was a kid, with Ben, he-“

Poe stops suddenly, overwhelming by the memory of what had become of the kid that showed him the shortcut through the jungle.

His brain moves too fast for him to even think about it, jumping from one thought to the next. One second he’s standing in his kitchen telling Finn about his childhood and the next he’s in a First Order interrogation room, his mind being torn apart while –

“Kriff, Poe, you need to breathe,” Finn’s voice solid and real, and Poe clings to it like a drowning man. His hands coming up shakily to grasp at Finn’s forearms. He hadn’t noticed Finn moving across the room, but now he could see that their faces were mere inches apart, and Finn’s eyes were wide with concern.

He sucks in a shaky breath, and then another, and finally manages out the words, “I’m fine.”

“No you’re not,” Finn insists. “I know fine, and that’s not what fine looks like.”

His eyes are watering ever so slightly, and he tears his gaze away from Finn to rub at them. Insisting all the while that he is fine.

Finn’s look of disbelief predictably doesn’t leave.

“It’s called a panic attack,” Poe says. “They’ve happened a couple times after what happened back before you rescued me, the meddroids said they’ll go away with time, as long as I avoid any triggers.”

The concern is back now. Finn’s fingers rub reassuring circles into Poe’s arms, the light pressure keeping him in the present. “Maybe we shouldn’t go to the old base, if it does this to you.”

Poe shakes his head. “It’s not that, it was something else, _someone else_ , but no – that’s exactly why we need to go.”

“I’m not following?”

“I want to take you there, and make new memories, great ones that can replace the old bad ones. I want-“ _To kiss you in that ceremonial hall with the light coming in the broken stained glass windows_ “-To take you there.”

Finn doesn’t look entirely convinced, but eventually he gives in nodding ever so slightly.

That’s the moment Poe remembers how to breathe on his own again.

 


	6. Finn

Finn casts a wary glance at Poe.

Not his first and certainly not his last, but other than the _incident_ the day before Poe appears to be fine.

Up until that moment Finn had been certain that this _vacation_ was purely Poe humoring him, that he was dying to get back into the action, but then he had seen the panic. The lost look in the other man’s eyes. They had all suffered in their own ways at the hands of the First Order, and this break from was war was for both of them.

Though Poe seemed far too keen on approaching his demons than Finn was comfortable with or entirely understood. There was so much he didn’t know, and despite Poe insisting that he was an open book and they Finn could ask anything, there were questions he knew never to voice.

Whatever memory had caused Poe to freeze up like that was not a memory worth asking about.

Instead Finn was going to make sure that the demons in his head were replaced by better memories, by happier ones.

It was the least Finn could do after everything Poe had done for him.

“Are we almost there,” Finn asks, aiming for casual. Definitely not checking in to make sure people are in the right head space – not at all.

But when Poe turns around to look at him there’s a grin on his face. “Nearly there. Your back still doing okay?”

Finn nods his head once, before picking up the pace, as if to prove his point. He’s not entirely certain it works, but Poe lets out a small laugh before picking up his pace as well.

\---

If he was expecting something like the base on D’Qar then he would have been let down, this wasn’t some hidden base undergrown caverns, meant to be unnoticed, but a grand almost temple like building. It clearly hadn’t been used in a while, plant life taking over places where it must have been clear before, but underneath it all – the former rebel base still looks like something out of a storybook.

“It used to be a Jedi training temple,” Poe explains, when Finn voices his thoughts. “Was abandoned ages ago, and when the Rebels went scouting for places that could work as a base they found it again, modernized the whole thing and built a proper hanger, but otherwise let it pretty much the same.”

“I’m impressed,” he admits, letting out a low whistle.

It’s nothing like the places he had seen as part of the First Order, all metallic and _state of the art_ , no this was something different, something better. It felt pure, in a way. Though all of Yavin 4 had felt that way.

As if its very purpose was to prove that there was still good in the world.

“So,” Finn says, “This is where the General got her start, then?”

That appears to be the right thing to say, because a second later Poe is lighting up with the quick instance to show him everything. And that’s exactly what he does.

The first place is the ship hanger. Empty now, but clearly having at one time been able to hold plenty of starships. There’s marks on the floor, red paint in some parts, blue in others. With each spot Poe stops to explain who flew that ship – some get a name and the class of their ship, others get long drawn out stories of heroism, stories that Poe clearly heard first hand. A _Captain Wedge Antilles_ gets Poe off telling some story about learning to shoot his first blaster in cloud city, and while Finn’s not entirely certain how it’s all supposed to connect he nods his head at the appropriate moments.

He may not have grown up on the tales of the heroes of the rebellion, like Poe did. May have only heard of them in passing, labeled as _public enemies_ , but now he feels a whole new connection.

He’s fighting the good fight now, just like that once had.

That has to count for something.

When just before they leave the hanger, Poe stretches his arms out wide and asks, “Can you imagine what it must have been like, back in those days?”

Finn says, “Yes.”

\---

“And this is where they stood,” Poe says, “Right as the General awarded them their medals of valor. Except she wasn’t called _General_ back then.”

Finn is standing at the bottom of the steps, watching Poe imaginary stage. He wonders what Poe sees when he looks out on the empty room. Does he seem more than just the cold stone? Perhaps he can imagine a crowd of people cheering him on, a beautiful slipping a medal of valor around his neck  - Finn can see it, this is where Poe belongs, he’s a hero and real one.

Whereas Finn…

Finn isn’t sure where he stands anymore.

But being in this room, watching Poe grin like a fool and recount the history lessons Finn never had a chance to learn, feels like the right place to be.

“Come up here with me,” Poe says.

There’s not even a question if Finn will do as he asks.

 Finn will go wherever Poe does.

Unquestioningly.

 When Finn finally reaches the same step as Poe, he moves to mirror the other man’s position, looking out on the empty room. The grand hall that is before him.

There’s the lightest brush of fingers against his hand, and Finn reaches out in reaction entwining his hand with Poe’s. When Poe squeezes his hand, Finn returns the motion.

“Sometimes, I wonder what we’re fighting for,” Poe says voice low and quiet, whispered so that even next to him Finn can barely hear him. “I know it’s worth it, that one day peace will be restored to the galaxy – but sometimes I remember this place. How everyone had stood in this room celebrating the destruction of the Death Star, only to have to do the exact same thing a few years later. How they worked so hard to establish a New Republic, only for the next generation to have to fight just to keep that Republic intact.”

Finn doesn’t dare speak, isn’t sure what to say.

But he turns away from the empty room to focus on Poe. Taking in the faraway look in his eyes. The way his mouth twists up in something akin to righteous anger. The way the sunlight streaming in from the broken windows behind them seems to encircle Poe in a halo of light.

“I just want to live long enough to see peace, real peace,” Poe says, voice breaking over the last word.

Finn wants to take that pain away from him desperately, but he doesn’t know how.

All he can do is promise, “I’ll make sure you do.”

It hits him then that he would die for this man.

Gone was FN-2187 who had helped Poe escape purely because he needed a pilot, and in his place was _Finn_ who would give everything he had just to keep a smile on Poe’s face.

\---

The sun sets while they’re still exploring the old Rebel base. Having moved on from the grand ceremonial rooms, to old control rooms and to the war rooms, to the bunks where the stuff that legends were made of might have shared.

Everything worth while had been taken from the rooms by looters years before, but there were still rickety beds, a place to rest for the night instead of trying to head back to the ranch in the darkness.

“They’re perfectly safe,” Poe reassures him. Or at least tries to. “I used to stay here all the time as a kid. When reality got a little tough to bear I’d sneak out here and pretend I was a Rebel pilot. This is where they would’ve stayed.”

The bunk room isn’t anything spectacular, in fact it reminds him a little bit of stormtrooper bunks, everyone stacked together with no hint of personal space. But the mental image of a young Poe sneaking away from home and sleeping in one of these bed, was enough to warm the place up a bit in Finn’s heart.

“Fine,” Finn says, with only a hint of reluctant, “But this is just because I don’t want _Piranha Beetles_ or whatever attacking us in the dark if we try to head home.”

“It’ll be fun! I promise! An adventure all of our own!”

It doesn’t feel much like an adventure, but he settles into one of the bunks at random, watching as Poe picks out a particular one like a man on a mission.

He wants to ask, certain Poe knows who each of these had belonged to at one point in time.

But the other man has fallen oddly silent, a small frown on the edge of his lips, and so Finn lets him have his space. Only relaxing when he hears Poe’s breathing even out, as he falls asleep.

No matter how hard Finn tries he cannot join him in sleep.

Instead he spends the night staring at the ceiling, counting each breath Poe takes, needing a reassurance for a moment that they’re still here, still alive, and that all of this is real.


	7. Poe

“This is all my fault.”

“None of this is your fault,” Finn insists, though there’s a grimace on his face that makes Poe certain to not believe anything that he’s saying.

Bunking in the old rebellion squadron bunks had been a bit of nostalgia for Poe. For all the times he had came down here as a child, but Finn is was a night sleeping on a far too stiff bed for someone still meant to be recovering from a serious back injury.

How could he have been so stupid.

“I’m sorry,” Poe says again, even though he knows it’s not enough. It’s not going to be enough until they get back to the ranch and Poe can get him a hot pad and a bed that’s actually made for comfort. “I should’ve thought, I should’ve-“

“Poe, seriously, I’m fine,” Finn insists, “I’ve felt worst.”

It’s not encouraging in the slightest.

If anything it only makes Poe feel worse.

\---

By time they make it back to the ranch Finn looks even worse, though he’s stopped saying as much, just scrunching up his face whenever a burst of pain seems to flash through him.

Poe helps him into the guest room, ignoring BB-8’s concerned beeps for the moment as he helps to settle Finn onto the bed. Before grabbing a hot pad from one of the hall closets and water for Finn to take his pain medicine with.

“You sure there’s nothing else I can do,” Poe can’t help but ask, even though Finn’s told him more than enough times that this isn’t his fault that he didn’t ruin everything. He’d had a plan, a plan to show Finn to rest of the base in the morning, to watch the sunrise in the grand hall with the light streaming in.

He was going to lay it all out on the table then, confess his feelings, but then the morning had shown up with Finn in pain.

Maybe it was a sign, the universe’s way of stopping Poe before he ruined the best friendship he’d ever had by doing something foolish like having feelings.

“Stop worrying,” Finn says.

“Easier said than done.”

\---

He throws himself into fixing up his mother’s old A-Wing. Unable to do anything more for Finn – Finn who keeps insisting that everything is fine despite Poe knowing better – leaves him with more pent up energy than he knows what to do with it.

Throwing that energy into a project that keeps both his mind and hands busy is better than sitting around the house, stewing with guilt. At least here he was in control of everything, there was nothing to accidently mess up, to ruin with his own empty headedness.

It was manual labor, the type of work that he had been doing ever since he was a child. Familiar in a way that served to distract him easily.

Such that one the third day of finishing up the A-Wings repairs, he had gotten himself so lost in the process that he hadn’t noticed the sound of someone entering the hanger.

Not noticing him until Finn speaks up, “I brought you a snack, figured you’d be working so hard you’d forget to take a break.”

Poe pushes himself out from underneath the A-Wing, staring up at Finn from his position on the ground. Truth be told he wasn’t sure what time of day it was, he’d come out here when the sunrise had woken him up, but now as he looked out the hanger doors it all too clear the sun was closer to setting than it should have been by his calculations.

“I may have forgotten,” he admits, getting up off the ground to take the offered sandwich and bottle of water from Finn. The water was sorely need and he takes an eager drink of that before asking, “Are you feeling better? I can help you back to the house if you need.“

“I’m fine,” Finn says. And when he no doubt sees Poe’s disbelieving face he adds, “For real this time.”

“So you admit it,” Poe says, with only the vaguest hints of triumph, “I’m sor-“

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence,” Finn cuts him off.  “If I ever have to hear you apologize again, Poe, I swear.”

“You’ll what?”

“Glare at you until you stop?”

“Sounds terrifying,” Poe teases. Taking the brief lull in their conversation as a perfect opportunity to stuff his face, something that Finn thankfully does not fault him for. In fact, it would almost seem as though Finn was happy just to be seeing Poe eating.

Assuming that Finn doesn’t want to hear any more questions about his condition, Poe searches quickly for a change of topic. The first one that comes to mind is the A-Wing before him.

“I’ve nearly got it up and running, this time tomorrow, we should be good to hit the skies.”

“We,” Finn questions, “That cockpit isn’t exactly made for two.”

“I’m sure we could manage,” Poe insists, winking reflexively.

It’s worth it when he sees the mild joy and interest on Finn’s features – one of the rare hints that maybe Poe is not entirely alone in what he’s feeling. The very notion is enough to give Poe the urge to push forward, to cross the space between them, and kiss Finn like he’s been wanting to do since the moment they were reunited on D’Qar.

He barely stops himself.

Instead saying, “Come on, hop up in the cockpit, I’ll show you how it works.”

Finn hesitates for only a second before giving in, following Poe’s carefully given instructions for getting inside the cockpit. Finn may not know how to fly this thing, but from where Poe is standing he looks like a natural. Hands brushing over the controls, as he finally looks up to meet Poe’s eyes.

Poe swears his heart starts beating a mile a minute.

“What first?”

“Right, well, first you’d want to disengage the-“ But that’s as far into Poe’s explanation as he can manage, because as his hands move over Finn’s to show him the controls, the proximity becomes too much all at once. There’s no way Finn can’t hear how loudly his heart is beating, and Poe might have been embarrassed by that had Finn not smiled ever so slightly at the touch.

Leaning across and kissing him seems like the most natural thing in the world.

As if this was what he had been made for, his entire life had been leading up to this moment, in the hanger outside of his childhood home, kissing Finn like nothing else matters.

Poe would have been content to stay like that for eternity, had he not put a hand out to stop himself from slipping forward and accidentally pressed something on the A-Wing’s dash, causing a shrill beep to fill the space around them.

“Shit,” Poe says, turning quickly to work on the controls.

“Not exactly the first words I would’ve expected after…” Finn trails off into silence.

And Poe snaps his head up at that, “Sorry, I just don’t want this thing taking off without us knowing.”

Finn grimaces, “Especially since I’d crash and kill us all.”

“Don’t say that,” Poe says, before asking, “What’d you expect me to say?”

“Finally?”

That one word, brings Poe back down the present.

He had just kissed Finn.

Finn, who was looking at him like he hung the very stars above them.

“Finally.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you noticed the chapter count change, it is because i am bad at math.


	8. Finn

 

Vacation had been nice before. Finn supposes.

But it was improved by a hundred percent with the introduction of kissing. Now that he didn’t have to bottle up his feelings and assume that Poe didn’t feel the same way – it was as if an incredible amount of tension had been lifted from his shoulders.

He kissed Poe everywhere.

In the kitchen.

While the food that Poe had been cooking left forgotten in the background, only remembering when something began to smell a bit burnt.

In the hanger.

Finn’s flying lessons intermixed with congratulatory kisses every time he remembered which control went to what part of the ship.

In the yard.

 Sitting together under Poe’s weirdly glowing tree, serving as the only light by which to see each other’s features (if one didn’t count the stars).

“I could get used to this,” Finn says, when they break apart to catch their breath. He’s laying out on the grass, looking through the branches of the glowing tree to see the stars.

 Poe had been on top of him moments before, enjoying their heated make out session, but he’s rolled off of Finn now so that they can lay side by side.

“What’s that?”

Finn entwines their fingers together, soft and sure.

“Vacation,” Finn explains, “I wasn’t so sure before, but now… Maybe taking a break wasn’t such a bad idea after all.”

“Maybe,” Poe pulls the one word out. Finn doesn’t look at him, but he can bet there’s that signature Poe Dameron smirk on his lips.

“I mean it did get you to kiss me, _finally_.”

Poe groans. “You should’ve mentioned something sooner, because I would’ve – I was going to sooner, I just didn’t want to mess things up. That’s actually why I took you to the old Rebel Base, I had this whole romantic idea for it… Lost my nerve at the last second.”

“Only _you_ would think an old Rebel Base could be romantic.”

“Next time I’ll let you pick the place.”

Finn squeezes Poe’s hand in his. “You know, I don’t know anything about romance. I’m sure half the time I’m doing all of this wrong-“

“You’re not,” Poe insists.

Which Finn would like to believe. He really would, but he knows how this goes. Things aren’t supposed to stop at kissing, they’re supposed to go beyond that. Hands are supposed to reach under shirts, and divest each other of pants.

He’s never made love before, but he’s had sex. The quick and efficient release that Stormtroopers had prided themselves on. Finn imagines making love would be different, that it would be tender and intimate, instead of quick and detached, but Poe…

Poe hasn’t wanted to move beyond kissing, even when Finn tried to initiate something more, Poe had seemed to balk at the prospect. Pulling back and slowing things down no matter how much Finn wanted them to go faster.

Finn had come up with two possible explanations for this, the first was one he didn’t want to consider.

And the other, well, Finn knew how to fix that one – “You know my back’s doing a lot better?”

“Yeah, I heard you on the comm with the General, didn’t mean to be listening in, but I heard your status report,” Poe says, completely missing the point, “I know you’re eager to get back to the action, but-“

“I’m not – I mean, I am, but that’s not what I mean,” Finn says cutting him off.

For a long moment Poe is silent, then he speaks up voice soft such that Poe has to strain to hear him. “What did you mean then?”

Better to get right to the point.

“You wouldn’t have to worry about hurting me, if that’s what’s holding you back.”

Poe’s hand uncurls from his. The sudden lack of comforting pressure sends a chill up Finn’s spine. So this what it then, his first horrible explanation was right, Poe didn’t want him for anything more than this. Maybe he didn’t even want him at all, this had been nothing more than Poe trying to help his recovery. All the doubts in Finn’s mind suddenly stand out so clear.

“That’s not what’s holding me back.”

Finn braces himself for the word. “What is?”

Poe’s sat up now, and in the light from the tree, Finn can make out the sheepish look on his features. “I thought you’d want to take it slow. You know, that maybe this was your first time, and I don’ want to pressure you into anything.”

And suddenly Finn could breathe again.

“Poe, I’ve had sex before.”

“You have?”

“Plenty.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“In that case… Why don’t we head inside? It’s getting a bit cold out here.”

\---

By some miracle they make it to the guest room that Finn had been staying in before tearing at each other’s clothing. It’s quick and desperate, and yet somehow each touch is heavy with emotion, each brush of Poe’s fingers against his skin is like welcoming him home.

There are too many layers between them, and Finn nearly trips over in his eagerness to rid himself of them. Falling back onto the bed with a slightly laugh, his legs tangled in his pants. He props himself up watch Poe, Poe who somehow manages to make the rush of stripping into an art.

If Finn hadn’t already been hard, the sight before him would have been enough to do the trick.

“Force, how did I get this lucky,” Finn asks.

And is in turn rewarded with a smile from Poe, as the other man finally moves over, pushing Finn back down into the sheets effortlessly.

“If anyone is lucky it’s mean.”

This time when they kiss it is not nearly as innocent as the ones that they have exchanged before. It is heated and hungry, passionate in a way that leaves Finn gasping into Poe’s mouth. His hands holding onto Poe’s hips as if for dear life.

He’s had sex before, but none of that could prepare him for the sudden surge of pleasure he feels when Poe’s hand comes down to circle around his cock. It is light and barely there, but the pressure is enough that Finn has to tip his head back, struggling to keep his moans inside.

As if sensing his thoughts, Poe says, “I want to hear you.”

And that’s all the invitation Finn needs, as he remembers that he’s not in the First Order anymore and therefore doesn’t need to be quiet. The only person that will be able to hear him is Poe, and Poe seems to take every sound as the best kind of encouragement.

“I want-“ Finn says, gasping again as Poe twists his wrist just so, “I want – you to – I just, I want you inside of me.”

The hand on his cock falters for a moment, as he hears a surprised and pleasurable gasp tumble from Poe’s lips. “Are you sure, you’re not just saying that because-“

“I’m not,” he reassures him.

“What about your back?”

“Kriff my back,” Finn says.

But even has he says the words, he can see the worry on Poe’s face. The worry that Finn knows will not be easily soothed away. If he loses this moment, the one he has been wanting for far too long, because of this he’ll never forgive himself.

So Finn does the only thing he can do. He kisses Poe until neither of them can think any more, until all that matters in their bodies and this moment.

When he breaks apart, all he manages to say is, “Please.” And it’s just enough, or nearly.

“Lube,” Poe asks, quickly.

“I – Kriff – there’s some lotion in the bathroom that could maybe…” Though the thought of Poe leaving to go hunt for lube is almost painful. The thought of Poe being away from him for even a second seems too much to bear, and maybe he senses that because a second later the look on Poe’s face changes to something more mischievous.

“I have a better idea?”

“Oh yeah, what’s that.”

No sooner are the words off his lips, before Poe is moving downwards, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and then his collarbone, and so on as he journeys downwards until his lips hover just above where Finn desperately wants them to be. A puff of air against him, sends a jolt through Finn, a jolt that intensified as Poe puts his mouth fully upon him.

This is not new, so much as rare.

Something that he’s only had once or twice before – but none of that compares to Poe. Poe, who works at him as if he were made to suck cock, hollowing his cheeks with ease as he bobs around Finn’s dick, before swallowing him down effortlessly.

It takes considerable effort for Finn not to buck into the heat of that warm mouth, his hands finding easy holds in Poe’s hair, rewarded with a moan in return that seems to vibrate through his cock.

“I’m not going to last,” Finn says.

Which only seems to spur Poe on, he moves with renewed passion, and Finn is helpless against him.

Coming before he can even shout out a proper warning, watching through lidded eyes as Poe swallows his release down with a practiced ease. The sight so stunning that Finn feels as though he will be ready for a second round sooner rather than later.

“Now, I do you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just the epilogue left


	9. Epilogue

The morning sunlight streams in through the windows casting shadows over their figures. It’s the sunlight streaming in that wakes Poe up, just like every day before, but this time he finds no motivation to push himself up and get going.

This only in part has to do with the lingering soreness of his body, the signs of a night well spent. More so it has to do with the person lying beside him in the bed.

Finn, who is still asleep. The bed sheet pooled around his hips, lying on his chest so that Poe can clearly see the scar that stretches across his back, pulling at his skin. Before Poe can fully think the movement through his hand is moving through the air, fingertips ghosting over the discolored skin.

He feels a bit bad, when he sees Finn stir beneath him.

The smallest of movements and a little huff of air is all the warning Poe gets before a sleepy voice speaks up, “Figures you’d be a morning person.”

It’s half mumbled and muffled by the blankets, but Poe hears it clear enough. A small laugh escaping his throat.

“You can go back to sleep.”

Finn makes a half-mumbles as though he might, before rolling on his side so that they’re face to face.

They’re so close that Poe wants to lean across the space and kiss him again, only holding back to sit mesmerized watching the way the light streaming in from the window falls over his features, the way the colors change as the sunrise.

There’s a war going on outside that window, outside of this planet. A war that they will soon be back in the middle of, fighting for what they believe in, fighting for just another day. But for a moment – the rest of the world is gone, and all that matters in the whole galaxy is lying in the bed beside Poe.

Finn, with dazed half-asleep look, lips quirking up in the smallest ghost of a smile, is the most beautiful sight in all of existence.

“I love you,” Poe says, and maybe it’s too soon for this, but he could not stop the words just like he could not stop his own heart from beating. It is true, each sentence, each syllable. Poe loves him, a fact that cannot be denied or disputed.

His heart stops then starts again, when Finn’s smile grows wider. “I love you too.”

The war can wait.

The whole damn galaxy can wait.

Because here in this moment is where Poe intends to spend the rest of his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Thank you all for reading along and commenting, your feedback means the world to me!

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @ plinys


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